Sophomore, Mary Htoo recalls early memories of her journey from Southeast Asia to the United States, on her way to a new culture and a new home.

“It took us three days and three nights and I got plane sick the whole way here,”  Htoo said. “I didn’t eat anything, whatever I swallowed, it came out.”

She was 14- years -old when shecame to the United States from a refugee camp in Thailand.

However, she and cousin Nana were not the first of their family to come to Wisconsin.

Htoo’s aunt and family were the first to end up in Waukesha,Wis through church sponsorship. Communication between the refugee camp and the church sponsors brought them to the United States.

“After that they communicate back to us, they said you should come here it is really nice, so we don’t know any other place,” she said. “That’s the only place we knew that our family been to and have experience, and they said it’s a great place.”

Sponsored by St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Pewaukee, Wisconsin Htoo and her family settled in Waukesha.

“Somehow right away when I got here and met up with my other families and sponsors, all the sickness went away,”Mary Htoo said. “I saw my cousin talking to the sponsor in English and I was very excited so I was just listening and smiling.”

Htoo and her cousin, Nana, arrived in the United States one month apart, each with a different church sponsor.

Htoo’s parents and grandparents are from Burma, where the government had taken their land and the army threatened violence.

Fleeing through villages and forests, they ended up at the refugee camp in Thailand where she was born.

Htoo and Nana still have some family members living in the Thailand camps.

“They said it’s getting very hard because they won’t get any food anymore,” Mary Htoo said. “They do get some food from the United Nations, but then it’s very little.”

Htoo is part of the UW-Whitewater Pathways for Success program. The program helps ensure student success by providing extra support during the first year of their degree program.

She and Nana are both working towards degrees in international studies.

“I hope to work with people, I want to work with all kinds of people and not just refugees,” Nana said.

Htoo hopes to work for the United Nations and open up a Thai restaurant in Waukesha, using her entrepreneurship minor.

The Process

Htoo said it was a long process before coming to America. The first step was filling out the application and waiting for application approval.

After being accepted, applicants move on to the interview stage where their name and ID number are verified.

The process then moves to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) so applicants can get their health checked out.

“You stay at the DHS for about three days, it depends how big your family is,”Htoo said. “They check our health for cancer, HIV, Aids, and all of those.”

Once families are cleared as healthy, onto the next step; learning how to get to America. A step that Htoo called ‘fun.’

Here, are learned the basics of flying on an airplane, as well as a little bit of English.

“That step was very fun because they separate parents and child so you get to meet other friends who are also on their way to America or other places,” Htoo said.

Nana explained they also learned about the culture of America.

“They showed us if we wanted to go out, for example use the restroom, we have to use ‘excuse me’ instead of just walking out,” said Nana.

Opportunity in the United States

Although Htoo missed her friends at the camp, she realized there were better educational opportunities.

She recalled seeing adults leaving the camp back in Thailand.

“They would go out illegally sometimes, but when I saw them go out, I wanted to go out of the camps too,” she said. “I wanted to go to other cities in Thailand, but I can’t do that because they don’t let us go out unless we pay them money to get the pass.”

Htoo’s mom owned a well-known restaurant in the refugee camp. There were only two restaurants in the entire camp.

“In the morning before I would go to school I would get up, get ready, start the fire, and then help my mom get ready for the shop,” Htoo said.

Then, she would go to school with her younger siblings until lunchtime where she came back home to help her mom at the restaurant.

Mary was excited for the opportunity to come to the United States and learn, despite her struggles learning english.

“For me, the english language is very hard. I would take courses that require writing and it would always give me a hard time because my grammar is really bad,” said Htoo.

Refugee population in Milwaukee

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families cited that over 70,000 refugees and former refugees live in Wisconsin.

In addition to church sponsors, like the ones who helped Htoo and Nana, there are agencies across the state that helps refugees once they arrive in Wisconsin.

Nana interned with an international institute in Milwaukee over the summer where she helped refugees.

“I was hoping to work with a lot of Karen people because in Milwaukee they have a big refugee Karen community,” said Nana.“Mostly, I worked with another group called another ethnic called Chin.”   

Nana helped new families by getting their health checked and showing them local transportation.

However, the message to other refugees is a hopeful one.

“There is always a hard time when you want to give up, but you just have to keep pushing,” said.